is everyone getting a little too obssessed with cleaning everything?

[Sunshine78]

The toddler group I go to cleans the toys pn a regular basis but now mums want antibacterail wipes in the toy boxes so they can wipe toys before letting children play with them (wipes are as clean after this as they were befor!) Also I've seen mums using the gel you can get on their hands after using the play dough and before they are allowe to do anything else. Yesterday was out to lunch and a mum got a spray out her bad sprayed the whole highchair and table before child was allowed anywhere near it. All seems to be going a little to far or am I just really scummy

comments weren't welcome and nothing improved..

Generally mud and muck are all well and good but I'm not into sharing infections if you don't need to. If you want to build immunity feel free to take your child to my local hospital and lick the toys!

What about when your poor little mite licks the toys that 'anti-bactirial woman' has just wiped clean? Eugggh. We eat stuff on the floor in accordance with the 10 second rule. DD eats the odd bit of dirt. It's all good for her immune system.

I love cleaning and have all my products (no antibactirial though, any freebies get binned). I've had to put them all on high and have stopped replacing when used up. IMO and after years of experience (apparently my love for cleaning dates back to about age 4) Cif cleans everything and vinegar for all glass and mirrors. A bit of washing up liquid for the floors. Sorted

Umm farm children go to nurseries and school too. They just have more exposure to germs at home. Although yes I would expect them to live a generally more active lifestyle. It is not that their parents do not clean their houses! It's the exposure in the farm yards that is thought to matter, otherwise there would be studies to suggest that neglected children have good immune systems, and I really do not think that is the case.

yeah not so keen on the chemical approach, I use vinegar on work surfaces, i just don't look down where my floors are concerned, but I'm not worried about dirt and muck as much as infected mucus being splattered about willy nilly..

so sticking them in a bowl of cow poo should fettle these townies eh?

I went to FILs house and DD (about 6months at the time, maybe younger) dropped her toy on the floor. Everybody insisted I cleaned it before giving it back to her, which I don't usually do (we were outside). They wanted me to clean it in the antibacterial spray! I just gave it a rinse under the tap but to be honest, at home I wouldn't even bother.

You could smear the toys in mud and poo instead, see how those other mothers like it

I too hate the anitbac stuff on kids things. On the odd occasion when I clean toys, it is just with water and a bit of washing up liquid - with the dishes usually.

I hate 'hand sanitizer' it's sticky and yucky and smells and you have to wash your hands after using it.

We lived on a farm but my dd still became critically ill. Interestingly though it was only when she started nursery when she picked up an infection.

In Sweden a lot of these anti-bacterial things have been banned. Thought to be bad for children.

Nooka is right. It is called the hygiene paradox and is a well-known scientific observation - that early exposure to germs and bacteria is essential for building up the immune system. Otherwise either the child ends up with weak immunity and/or the immune system goes into overdrive the minute if comes into contact with germs and develops asthma, eczema and auto-immune diseases. Clean flat-living has been blamed for the explosion in these conditions in modern day children.

My dcs went to nursery from about 1 year old. When they started, they came into contact with snotty noses, chesty coughs etc every day, and were frequently poorly for the first 6 months. After that, very little can touch them and I still have not been able to make them catch chicken pox. I really do believe that the immune system needs a good workout.

Being too clean is not doing your dcs a favour.

Scummy nanny here. I use a clean nappy wipe for my hands after changing a nappy

Bugs give the immune system something to do.

Tho these products have a place for immune compremised people.

Sorry to hear that. Of course any study is only a generality, and the farm children one is a theory only. The most important infection control message remains to wash your hands (and soap and hot water is still the best method). Anti-bacterial products should in the main be used where the risk is higher. In most family settings the highest risk comes from poor storage of food. I really think it is very unhelpful to encourage children to be frightened of dirt, and think that this overuse of wipes and sprays verges on the neurotic.

Yes I agree, her immunity was weakened through being over-tired and she had an inherent weakness that triggered it, but I wish I hadn't put her in nursery at such a young age. I believe in strengthening immunity but for some it should be much more gradual. I agree too with muck and dirt but my dd had tissue damage to her chest and was for a while prone to chest infections, if I saw a child with a cough I'd run for the hills!

According to research, our children live in a too clean world, and immune systems overreact to harmless bugs and allergens with increasingly OTT reaction.

Research shows that when we have lots of bugs around and that includes parasitic worms, we are all healthier.

The BBC has an article on asthma in children and parasitic worms here. Apparently the worms modify the immune response to keep themselves happily enthroned.

And children who are exposed to bugs when in infancy and Preschool have a much lower chance of developing leukemia. An article from Science Daily
here.

I know my excema goes mad when I use antibacterial anything.

On a similar note, the advances in refrigeration and use of 'use by' dates haven't really done us many favours either.

Food poisoning incidents are much higher than when people had to buy fresh every day and simply used common sense (and their noses!) to know if something was off.

I never understand how we are supposed to be more clean than years ago with all these sprays, gels, anti bac this and that yet on the other hand seem to be getting more unhealthy and ill??

don't think it's by any means definitive:
here

Something has to be done to stop the ridiculous over-use and (more importantly) the misuse of these antibacterial agents - if not, our grandchildren are likely to be the ones who suffer the worst as a result of our neurosis -think MRSA but worse. We already have our work cut out for us finding ways of dealing with virus and prion related illnesses without having antibacterial-resistant strains on the increase too.

I don't blame the people who use them - they have been terrified into doing so by the media.

I do my floors in the morning with water and fairy, my ds blows raspberrys on it when he is crawling around lol! I only used to sweep in the morning before he was mobile.

Holly

You really don't need to do that, it won't do him any harm to crawl on a fall or lick a floor that is'nt washed everyday.

Was she a baby rebelmum? My two started nursery at two and a half, which seems an ideal sort of age. Before that they did meet other children, but not such a large number for such a long time IYSWIM. None of the ideas about allergies and immunity problems are more than theories at present. I was brought up not to worry too much, and having managed an infection control department mostly I feel I've got things about right. Oh the benefits of worms, maggots and leeches

I never bother with antibacterial anything. Never have. Even stopped sterilising much earlier than the you're 'supposed to'.

Wash hands before eating and after using the loo - that's about as hygenic as we get in our house.

(We also have a 3 second rule in our house - if you drop food on the floor, you have 3 secs to pick it up before it is officially 'spoiled' - before that, you can still scoff it .)